This collection of news chum has coalesced around the theme of Los Angeles — in particular, some well-known (or somewhat well-known) Los Angeles landmarks that are either gone or seemingly threatened… or coming back in different incarnations.

The Lucy / Desi Ranch. Lucille Ball and Desilu have been in the news of late due to the anniversary of Star Trek, which owes its existence to the comedic redhead. If you’ve read up on Lucy’s history, you’ll know that she and Desi had a ranch in Chatsworth, along Devonshire St. somewhere between Topanga Canyon and Reseda. I had always thought it was the ranch at the end of Winnetka, but this real interesting research piece locates it conclusively. It was just W of the corner of Corbin and Devonshire, on the S side, and is now roughly where Tuba St is (although the original ranch house was demolished in the 1970s when that area was developed).

Dutch Chocolate. The famous Dutch Chocolate building is up for sale. The building is rundown now, but once held on its ground floor the Dutch Chocolate Shop, a city landmark decorated top to bottom with elaborate tiles crafted by renowned Pasadena artist Ernest Batchelder. It’s considered by many experts to be the tilemaker’s most important commission. Renovating the building will be expensive, as it requires adding an exit. Let’s hope the tiles get saved and can once again be on view.

Now that the highway pages are done, and the water heater is repaired, I can start some stew cooking on the stove. Loads of interesting articles in here. I’ll group them the best I can.

Things Dying and Dead, But Then Again….

The iPod Classic. Nine years ago, Apple introduced the iPod Classic. Last week, they introduced the iPhone 7. The iPod Classic had 160GB in a spinning hard disk, for $349. The iPhone 7 can have 256GB for almost $850. Is this the replacement for the Classic, finally? Or, is it still better to get a 7th Gen iPod Classic off eBay, or from that drawer you’ve been hiding it in, and replace the hard disk with a Tarkan board, some solid state memory (I put in 512GB), and keep the classic. Going the Tarkan route is less than $400, and gives you more memory for about the same cost. Oh, and it gives you a 3.5mm headphone jack as well, so you needn’t pay for adapters or lost AirPods. Then again, the headphone companies don’t care. They’ve got product to sell you.

The Colony Theatre. Oh, the poor Colony. We thought you would survive. Now you’re having to rent out your space just to stay alive. And your poor subscribers: We’re left holding the tickets for shows that we will never see (literally — there’s no way I’m gonna see Patty Duke in Mrs. Lincoln — both are dead). Will the Colony come back? At this point, I’m highly skeptical. What they need is new artistic direction, a new board, and a new way of thinking about things. Their collapse shows the perils of keeping the same leadership for far too long.

The Advertising Jingle. Perhaps you hadn’t noticed, but the advertising jingle is dead. Who killed it? Cover artists and the licensing of modified lyrics, that’s what. Those are more easily recognizable. So, our hats are off to you, “I’d like to teach the world to sing”, “Like a good neighbor”, and “Plop Plop Fizz Fizz”. We’re just left with the Empire Carpeting jingle.

Paper Airplanes and Grand Park. Giant paper airplanes are soon coming to Grand Park. The shade structure appropriately titled “Paper Airplane” will be unveiled Tuesday near the oft-photographed Arthur J. Will Memorial Fountain (they’re actually made by “made of a mesh-like material”). Created by artists Elenita Torres and Dean Sherriff, it will look like a squadron of 11 giant paper planes floating across Olive Court. That’s the totally exposed area between Grand and Hill where food trucks line up during the weekday lunch hours.

Sensitivity and Culture

Tiki Bars. Here’s an interesting question: If you were going to add a third arm to your body, where would you add it? Whoops, wrong question. Try this: Are Tiki Bars offensive to Polynesians? NPR endeavored to figure that out. It is hard to know: Tiki bars are about as close to something really Polynesian as the Chinese Food you got downtown in the 1950s and 1960s was to real Chinese food.

Napalm Girl. The furor yesterday was over Facebook and “Napalm Girl” — the famous photo of the napalmed Vietnamese girl. First it was taken down. Facebook banned it. Then they reversed themselves. It makes me think about a debate that occurred many many years ago when that photo was first published: Should photos like this be published? When does news value override sensitivity? These questions are still relevant today.

Development the Second: Westchester / “340 Acres Near LAX Getting Total Overhaul“. Over near the airport, the community of Westchester may also see new development: this time, it is the space that is between the residential neighborhood and the runways.

Development the Third: Burbank / “Revealed: Big Plans to Redevelop the Burbank Ikea Site“. There is a massive overhaul coming up to the Burbank Mall and the soon to be former Ikea facility. There’s going to be the new-style residential/business mix (first major residential push in Burbank in a while). There will also be an attempt to re-think and re-work the mall.

Friday, the ACSAC conference ended for 2015. This year (and next year), the conference was in Los Angeles at the beautiful Universal City/Los Angeles Hilton; this meant that on top of my usual Training Chair hat, I was Local Arrangements Chair. That means I was the coordinator for the event: assigning the rooms, picking the dinner entertainment (more on that in the next post), and selecting all the menus. When I first saw the hotel menus, I was shocked at the prices: lunch prices between $40 and $50; and dinner prices even higher. In fact, when I got the end of day survey for the first day at the hotel, I had trouble answering the question: was this a good value for the price? How can you judge, when gallons of coffee are so expensive.

But as the week went on, I grew to understand the prices are so high. In many ways, this is the same reason that the prices are so high in well established and fancy restaurants. And, no, the reason is not “because they can”. The reason is service.

When you go to almost any restaurant, the bulk of the cost of your meal is not the food costs. Food costs, right now, are relatively low. Delivery costs to your location are higher, but even those aren’t the bulk of the cost due to the volume being shipped. The most significant factor in the cost of a meal out is the labor. In fact, the labor is so expensive they increase the size of the portion so you don’t feel guilty paying that price. [And, of course, we’ve all be taught to clear our plates and not waste food, and so you have one reason behind the growth in obesity. In fact, there might be an interesting statistical study in the correlation between the cost of labor, portion size, and obesity in society.]

In a hotel — especially in a hotel that focuses on service such as a ★★★★ hotel — that cost is magnified more so. Everywhere I turned around at the HUC (Hilton Universal City) there was someone from Banquets making sure that all our needs were met, someone from IT making sure the A/V was right, someone from … you get the idea. Who pays for that service? It isn’t room rental — often room rental is gratis if you make a particular number of room nights and a minimum food and beverage. In fact, the answer is in that sentence: it is in the room rates, and the food and beverage costs. A certain amount of labor can be absorbed by the room rates, but the hotel also must be competitive. The bulk of the labor is captured in the F&B costs.

So, let’s go back to the question: is it a good value? We had only compliments on the quality of the food, and the quantity was almost too much (must remember that for next year). Most importantly, there were no complaints about service or the meeting rooms. The hotel staff was there whenever we needed them, often going above and beyond (with no additional charges). So, looking back in retrospect, I think it was a reasonably good value.

(Of course, that still didn’t mean I didn’t wince a little signing the final event orders. Who wouldn’t? But I also now better understood why I was paying what I was paying).

By the way, this is something that the great unwashed public — and even Congress — doesn’t understand. We’ve all read of the DOD acquiring toilet seats that cost $200 each, when they are $10 at the hardware store. We get incensed about the price, without knowing that they have unique manufacturing requirements that prohibit volume manufacturing, that they have documentation and maintenance requirements for their lifetime, and that they have the overhead of the administrative employees at the corporation that manufactures them, which has much lower volume to spread that overhead across when compared to a bulk manufacturer. Similarly, we hear stories of conferences with the $15 muffin or the $45 rubber chicken, and think the government is wasting money. It isn’t: that money goes to all the people employed by the hotel, providing all the service, and spending that money in the community. Yes, there are some conferences with boondoggles, but most food costs are not the boondoggles. Now you understand.

Let’s end this week of news chum posts with song lyrics in the title with a very apropos song for a “news chum stew” post: Pete Seeger’s All Mixed Up. The point of the song is a timely lesson for all of those who profess hatred or refuse to permit in refuges:

There were no red-headed IrishmenBefore the Vikings landed in IrelandHow many Romans had dark curly hairBefore they brought slaves from Africa?No race of man is completely pure,Nor is anyone’s mind, that’s for sureThe winds mix the dust of every land,And so will woman and man.

Women on Broadway. Let’s go with this women theme for a minute. December 3rd is when the updated version of The Wiz is presented live on NBC… and the producers have let us know what their next project will be: They are bringing Bombshell (from Smash) to Broadway.

Girl… Scouts? This article raises a question that has oft been raised to me as President of a synagogue brotherhood: why do we still have brotherhoods and sisterhoods in congregations. If we are truly egalatarian, they seem archaic institution… especially in this era of trans-rights? We no longer see sex as binary, so why two organizations? What is the article? It seems that a group of girls in California have sued to become part of the Boy Scouts. (if the link doesn’t work, as NYT links might, do this search)

Music and Bicycling. Here’s an article about how cities are cracking down on distracted bicycling. Now, I’m all for safe bicycling. But I like to listen to my podcasts or music as I ride, just as I do in my car. Why can’t someone invent a bike helmet that can connect (either wired or bluetooth) to an iPod or MP3 player to play music and yet let you hear traffic noise.

In the last day or two, I’ve been talking heavily about chum and stew. Hungry yet? Perhaps these food related items will whet your appetite:

Gluten Free Fads. As you know, I’m interested in the gluten free diet craze because my wife is celiac and has to each gluten free for medical reason. Over the last two weeks, a few articles caught my eye related to this. The first is an article from the BBC talking about the fad. The title is horrible, but the points are good: you should really only go gluten-free if you medically have to. Gluten-free food isn’t necessarily healthier; sometimes it is worse. Further, those who don’t really have sensitivities can muck up a restaurant’s idea of what is GF for those that will get really sick when they slip up. The second is an article about a pill that will supposedly make it safe for celiacs to eat gluten. My attitude on this is: let someone other than my wife test it (translated as: the risk that it won’t work is just too great). In many ways, I’m not sure this is a problem that needs pharmacological solution: the GF diet works, and those that follow it don’t miss much. The benefits of eating gluten aren’t that great, and the cost of the pill will surely outweigh any costs of special food. Lastly is a link to a purported gluten-free B&B in the area.

You Gotta Have Culture. Let’s move from what my wife eats to what I eat. Cottage cheese. Every day on my salad at lunch. You used to see cottage cheese everywhere. Today, it’s yogurt, yogurt, yogurt. But cottage cheese is wonderful — and not only with fruit. I like it mixed into almost anything — it adds a wonderful sweet cheesy flavor. NPR explores how that upstart yogurt got ahead of cottage cheese.

Dining in the Valley. One last food related item: a list of 10 San Fernando Valley cheap eats. We’ve eaten at some of these (and some are favorites), such as Lum Ka-Naad (near our house), Bun Me, and Les Sisters. Others we’ll need to try.

The smell of stew cooking in the crockpot reminded me I need to post a stew of my own; with vacation and such, it’s been a few weeks. So let’s clear out those links…

Burger Continental is Gone. We discovered this as we returned home from the Ren Faire a few weeks ago: BC has closed their doors. No more can Adrian, their long-time waiter (and one of the owners, from what I’ve heard) flirt with my wife. They were a reliable dinner when we were going to the Pasadena Playhouse. I’ll miss them.

Airline Safety, Take 1: Fitting In The Butts. As we all know, airlines are squeezing passengers closer and closer together, both through thinner seats and decreased pitch. The big problem: That may not be safe. A consumer advisory group has asked DOT to look into the matter.

Cleaning Out the Stash. One of the problem when your parents die is cleaning out what they left at the house. That problem turns weird when you discover their adult stash — i.e., their porn collection. Yes, your parents think about sex — who do you think made you the horndog you are? Yes, I’m looking at you. Luckily, there is an adult bookstore in London that will take that porn off of your, umm, hands.

But What Will I Watch in Hawaii. I don’t know what you did when you visited Hawaii in your college years, but I…. programmed. I have fond memories of listening to the Jerry Lewis Telethon (back in the late 1970s, mind you) and programming for the UCLA Computer Club. Today’s children will have to find something else to do: MDA has cancelled the Labor Day Telethon. I’ll note that it had really gone downhill without Jerry Lewis and the folks he drew in, and MDA parted ways with him a few years ago.